Gandhi's account of the
Vedanta philosophy is most illuminating and for various reasons. Neither in
the case of Sankhya‑Yoga, nor in that of Naya‑Vaisesika (nor in
that of Mimamsa) did Gandhi encounter strong contemporary champions,
but a good part of India's Hindu populace happens to be the adherent of
one Vedanta sect or another (and a majority of scholars working in the
field of Indian philosophy happen to be the sympathizers of Advaita
Vedanta). Gandhi therefore thought it necessary to carefully analyze the
respective philosophical standpoints of Sankar‑ the chief advocate of
AdvaitaVedanta‑ and Ramanuja‑ the chief advocate of
VisistadvaitaVedanta‑, devoting relatively much greater attention
to the former. And by way of introducing his subject he quoted long passages
from the famous ChandogyaUpanisad dialogue between Uddalaka
Aruni and his son Svetaketu. We are thus enabled to work out for ourselves of
comparative estimate of the old‑Upanisadic teaching, Sankara's teaching
and Ramanuja's teaching on the fundamental questions of philosophy. In the
course of his exposition of Sankara's philosophy Gandhi explicitly touches
upon the problem of the relation in which this philosophy stands to the
teaching contained in the old Upanisads. He rightly points out that
Sankara's followers with their distinction between `lower' and `higher' truths
find no difficulty in both accepting and repudiating the teaching of old
Upanishads which seldom lend clear support to the idealist‑ illusionist
philosophy of Sankara. As a matter of fact, in Gandhi's present lecture‑series
most of such remarks as can be construed as critical‑remarks that are
certainly few and far between‑ are concentrated in the part concerned with the
exposition of Sankara's philosophy.

6. BUDDHISM

The last non‑Jaina system of
philosophy considered by Gandhi is Buddhism. But here the exposition of
the Buddhist philosophy is preceded by a summary narration of Budda's
life‑story. The decision of include the biographical portion seems to have
been a result of second thoughts but it has been well executed; for we are
thereby assisted in forming a graphic idea of what it was in Buddha's
life‑activities that Gandhi admired most. In his exposition of the Buddhist
philosophy Gandhi confines himself to Southern Buddhism (i.e., the
Theravada branch of HinayanaBuddhism). Now in the
philosophical literature of Southern Buddhism much attention has been
devoted to the ethico‑religious problems and comparatively little to the
metaphysical ones. The same is the case with Gandhi's account of the Buddhist
philosophy. For we are here given an account of the fourfold `noble truths',
fthe seven `jewels' of the Buddhist law, the Buddhist notion of
nirvana, the Buddhist understanding of the `law of Karma', and
such other ethico‑religious topics, but the doctrine of `five skandhas
(along with its corollary, the doctrine of `no soul') ‑ the only metaphysical
doctrine considered‑is introduced as a sort of side‑issue while dealing with
the first `noble truth'. The only place where Gandhi pointedly raises
objection against a Buddhist position is revealing. For he feels that
Buddha's acceptance of the `law of Karma' is incompatible with the
latter's denial of `soul'. Now irrespective of whether this objection of
Gandhi is valid or not it is definitely indicative of his repeatedly asserted
conviction that an ethics in order to be sound must be based on a sound
metaphysics.

7. JAINISM

Last of all Gandhi takes up
the Jains system of philosophy, a system he himself espouses. As noted
earlier, it is in this connection that Gandhi enumerates the four questions
regarded by him as basic to all philosophical investigation. The questions
are:

(1) What is the nature of the
universe?

(2) What is the nature of God?

(3) What is the nature and
what the destiny of soul?

(4) What are the laws of the
soul's life?

Gandhi's account of the Jaina
answer to these four questions is worthy of most serious consideration. For
here we have a fine illustration of Gandhi's inexhaustible capacity to make
the Jaina positions comprehensible to a non‑Jaina audience‑and a non‑Jaina
Western audience at that). Gandhi's `four questions' clearly prove that his
understanding of what constitutes a philosophical investigation was truly all‑
comprehensive. Thus he would expect a philosophical system to touch upon the
problems of metaphysics, psychology, ethics, as well as religion. Of course,
Gandhi knew (and the present lecture‑series is an evidence thereof) that not
all-philosophical systems are equally interested in discussing these various
generic types of problems, but he was convinced‑perhaps, rightly that neglect
of any of these types of problems on the part of a philosophical findings.

It is hoped that this
preliminary introduction to Gandhi's lecture‑series on the systems of Indian
Philosophy will help the reader in viewing it in a proper perspective.

The present edition of
Gandhi's lecture‑series is prepared on the basis of his own manuscript of it
that is in the possession of Shri Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya, Bombay.
However, this manuscript does not contain anything on Jainism. But the lecture
(with the title `Jainism') published on pp. 41‑60 of The Jaina Philosophy
begins by mentioning that it is the last lecture of some lecture series; from
this we have surmised that here is the lecture on Jainism that belongs to our
lecture‑series (which too need in the form of its last member a lecture on
Jainism). Maybe our surmise is wrong but most probably it is not. Again, we
learn from The Universalist Messenger, Chicago, February 10, 1984 (quoted at
the end of the `Selected Speeches of Shri Virchand Raghavji Gandhi' published
in May 1964 in the form of `Shri Vallabhsuri Jaina Literature Series, No. 10')
: "The series of lectures on Oriental philosophy given by Mr. Virchand R.
Gandhi every Monday evening at the residence of Mr. Chas. Howard, 6558 Stewart
Boulevard, are growing more and more interesting. The subject philosophy."
This (along with the fact that the first blank page of our manuscript carries
the address `6558, Stewart Avenue, Englewood III)' is the basis of our
surmising that our lecture‑series was delivered at Chicago in 1984. Here again
our surmise might possibly be wrong but most probably it is not.

Mistakes occurring in the
manuscript that are obviously the slips of pen have been corrected by us
without making mention of the fact, but the places where a mistake is just
suspected or where the manuscript is not legible have been duly noted. The
division of a lecture into sections and of a section into paragraphs (as also
the titling of sections) has been undertaken by as with view to facilitating
the reader's comprehension and Yoga Gandhi closely follows certain texts of
the systems; hence at appropriate places a precise reference to the relevant
passages from these texts has been made by us in the form of footnotes. In the
case of Buddhism, similar reference has been made to a few passages
from the Abhidhammathasangaho‑ a standard philosophical manual of
TheravadaBuddhism‑; but this does not amount to claiming that it
is this text that has been used by Gandhi. (The lectures on Naya and
Vedanta are a few independent footnotes of our which seek either to elucidate
of to complete or to criticize a remark made by Gandhi; (These are not
footnotes given by Gandhi himself).

Following Gandhi's practice,
no diacritical marks have been used in the Roman version of Indian proper
names. However, since the technical terms of Indian philosophy, when written
in Roman without diacritical marks, are likely to be misunderstood they have
been given in Devanagari; (this too is in most cases a practice also of
Gandhi‑who however uses for the purpose the Gujarati script rather than
Devanagri).